Netlify is great for publication of static web sites - it is greater if the data if big like in case of scientific data.
Using HoloViz technology it is easy to generate static html files with interactive graphics. This has been used in the past to publish interactive posters and interactive material to support papers such as:
This technology allows today to publish a full interactive scientific paper where readers can interact with the plots. However, no major scientific publisher can handle html files. There are a few attempts to create new scientific venues that include interactive graphics. Here are one examples
However, those are specialized for topic or specific format and not necessarily suitable for all scientific publications and there is room for more scientific publication venues.
These days one identifier for a scientific publication is the ability to cite it which is made easier by a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
My questions is if it is possible to somehow assign a Netlify site a DOI. It seems to be possible for a github repository:
Is it not hard to register Netlify with the DOI system and provide an option to purchase a DOI. Registering a DOI has a minor fee associated with it that is worthwhile only for a publisher. Here are some sample proces:
If Netlify can provide this service for a small profit, it would be a great arrangement.
If this is possible it will make Netlify a good choice for new scientific publications that have interactive features.
I currently have such an interactive paper regarding COVID-19 modeling that I want to publish, yet there are no venues that are currently suitable - hopefully you can help.
If you think it is helpful, there is much more information I can provide - I was limited to 6 links, so I could not post more examples of Journals that can do this. If you do decide to do this and can do it fast, I am more than willing to be the first test subject. Yet speed is important.
Hi, @jbarhak. We will be happy to enter a feature request that we offer DOIs but I consider it very unlikely that this feature would ever get added and if it did, that it would not happen soon. You are the first person I know of to request DOI support and our offerings of new features tends to be tied to demand for them. I’m just being clear that if “fast” is a requirement, that it is unlikely to happen.
That being said, there is nothing preventing you from creating DOIs with the services that do offer them and then pointing those DOIs to sites hosted at Netlify. Meaning, using third-party DOIs to point to Netlify sites is already possible. We just don’t offer DOIs ourselves.
To summarize, I cannot say if we will ever offer DOIs but, if I do enter a feature request for this, it would be highly unlikely to happen anytime soon. If you want us to proceed with the feature request or if there are other questions about this, please let us know.
Your message is clear. I will seek an alternative solution. However, the reason you do not get requests like mine us probably because not that very many scientists use Netlify to create web sites with scientific resources. This is unfortunate since leased has a unique solution that makes this easy and with some python technologies it is easy to create content that is interactive. Once more scientists discover those technologies, you might get more interest. It just did not happen yet.
I suggest you keep the idea for the future, offering a unique solution may open new opportunities for Netlify.
I wanted to follow up here and thank you for taking the time to share your insights and make this suggestion! I have brought your idea to the team at large, and this is not something that we are going to add to our roadmap at this time.
We really appreciate when folks surface new ideas, suggestions, and feedback, so please do not hesitate to reach out in the future. These are the things that all make Netlify Forums members great!
Hi @luke, not only @jbarhak. I think tht is very important to get a DOI in the scientist community. I’m agree with terms shared by @jbarhak. I have the same problem: a site in netlify, I have an ISBN for this material, but I can’ get a DOI for citing.
Like @jbarhak, I would like you keep the idea for the future, offering a unique solution may open new opportunities for Netlify.
As far as I know this is the first interactive publication in the field of disease modeling and getting a DOI for it was a long and difficult process since there is no venue that can support this. This publication followed a long discussion with multiple entities dealing with publication. You can find a summary here: https://www.pidforum.org/t/is-there-a-publisher-that-can-assign-doi-to-an-interactive-paper/1396
I assume that Netlify does not see enough requests from the scientific community to justify investment in a mechanism that will issue a DOI for scientists to support persistence of reference. However, perhaps if there will be enough requests, they will reconsider. Therefore I appreciate your support in this idea.
Netlify, provides new publication options that scientists can explore to make their work more comprehensible and accessible. Hopefully more scientists will realize the new technological opportunities and join this request to make their work citable in a persistent manner through a DOI.